Chapter 152 - Arc 10 - Living For Others

Yet another chapter that was hard. I've found it's hard to write for this story recently, which is causing the side stories to fall further behind.

I'm feeling more motivated than ever but not for this story which is very awkward. Thing is, and I realized this while making a sandwich earlier. I haven't taken a vacation from the story in like half a year. I've only taken three period since the story started, and I'm supposed to be doing one every arc.

So, before I start soul searching to try and find the hidden spice, this arc ends next chapter (or the one after) and then I'm going to take two weeks off. The first will actually be free of Sakura, the second one I'll be trying to get done a ton of side stories to reduce the stress.

Then I'll see how I feel when I get back. I bet I'll be in love all over again, because I genuinely do love this story and the plans I have for it.

Anyway, enjoy the arc's second to last chapter.

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The melodic ringing in his ears almost sounds pleasant despite the connotations rocking him back and forth. It’s not the ringing itself - that’s obviously annoying - it’s the blissful silence that comes along with it. For a short moment he isn’t Sasuke Uchiha. He didn’t just assassinate an allied ninja, he didn’t see the fear in her eyes, he’s just a boy in the void watching sand kicked up block his vision from above and letting the tingling of his ears try to lure him blissfully into sleep. It’d be so easy to close his eyes and let it pass. Sakura’s probably got some kind of back up plan, and even if she doesn’t, Itachi’ll die of old age eventually. His one goal in life will be accomplished whether he lives or dies, it’s just a personal vendetta that every day makes harder.

Would anyone care if he just faded away? No one that he can think of besides Sakura, but she’s shown a remarkable ability to get over death.

Luckily - or unluckily depending on who you ask - Temari’s wind is indiscriminate. Before he can truly zone out of reality long enough to get killed like an idiot, sand tears into his skin and something digs right through his leg. He’s shocked back to reality forcefully by the natural force his lone ally emits, and he can’t help but find it fitting. He hesitated and now he’s suffering, that’s what Sakura’s been trying to tell them from their very first mission. In the very beginning she was willing to jump through a fire ball if it meant not hesitating. She ripped someone in half who was much stronger than her by being willing to move and never stop moving. Here, it’s not such a big deal, but in the real world this injury would probably keep him off his feet for weeks if he was on a mission and didn’t have access to Konoha’s hospital.

He simply reaches into his pouch and grips a glass vial that he pulls out with a focused gaze. It’s filled with a red liquid. He quickly opens the vial and begins to pour it on his wound. It’s not the first time he’s had to do this since this game started, but watching the almost sap like substance slowly drip out despite his attempts to upend it still gets to him a little. The anticipation is the worst part, the pain that it causes as it forcefully revitalizes his flesh is hardly important in comparison to expecting it.

An agony waited for is felt twice, and it feels like he has to wait for it forever. Only a few seconds pass in reality before he feels it begin to steam and his entire bloodstream burns, but it’s not a wait he’d wish on anyone. The moment he feels the pain he yanks the thing out from his leg only to find the wannabe Hunger glowing and flaring to life from his blood. Since he doesn’t have Sakura’s skill to reduce damage to himself done by his own sword he should probably be drained dry, but he can see a crystal in its handle that’s full of glowing energy and doesn’t seem to want more from him.

There’s something endearing about Sakura patching the version of the sword she gave him to not have the issue she once encountered, he smiles until the memory of her dying pinned to a tree reminds him smiling is illegal. That patch is probably the only reason why he’s still alive, he wasn’t very quick to react and it scales its devouring of someone’s life essence very quickly.

He doesn’t have long to feel grateful because the wound is already starting to close and the version that works on his whole body when drunk costs about ten times more, so he chose to get ten of these instead. He places the sword right back in the wound now that he knows it’s not urgent and pours the potion along the blade. He watches as it slowly slips down the sword and seeps into where it cut, only dragging it out one drop of healing flesh at a time. He’s once again grateful he can’t hear, as his throat already feels so dry that he can only imagine he’s screaming a lot louder than he’d like to hear.

The moment he’s done and the Hunger ripoff is removed from his flesh he jumps to his feet like it never happened. Before the steam has even stopped, he’s good as new… except in his throat and hearing. A healing potion is a staple in every game, it makes sense Sakura would think of it and plop it into all their shops. It’s expensive, but they have too many coins from their ruthless conquest again so this is nothing. He could have afforded the good healing potions but he’s the kind of idiot to hoard money and he can consider that a lesson learned. He’ll be buying better equipment when he gets the opportunity forevermore… at least medical supplies.

Tossing the vial to the side, he uses his new liberty to pay attention to anything but himself to take in the carnage in front of him. The entire cabin is destroyed, torn apart with fragments tossed aside. The corpse he’d created before the battle had even begun is a little to his side and in multiple parts in a gruesome display he’d rather not look at. All her equipment is gone, and the notification to the corner of his vision informing him that her loot was split amongst her team answers what’s up with that. The fact that it only mentions one death informs him of even more.

“Elp!” He’s not sure what she’s trying to say but Temari’s voice pries into his head as the first sound originating outside of his mind since the explosion. He knows he has injuries from the sand. He can feel flashes of pain on his face and something wet is dripping down his cloak, but that’s not nearly as important as Temari is right now, he needs to focus himself into the moment and come back to reality before she gets hurt. She’s someone else who might care if he died, he’ll add her to the list if they get out of here. He clutches his sword so hard in his hand he feels his fingers crack, and he focuses on that pain for a moment to try and drag himself back here. He needs to, for her, she’s been making it blatantly obvious that she wants to pursue a friendship since she got here and that’s all someone needs to be worth getting himself together for.

It takes him a few seconds of looking at the gusts of wind rolling across the landscape and the blasts of light going off for his efforts to stun him out of his fugue and make him realize he needs to move. The forces of nature are alive and sand is being thrown all around. There’s shadow creatures flowing between the battle combatants and getting destroyed so fast in the crossfire that they might as well not be there. They decidedly did not get the enemy in this ambush and now he’s needed to fight or his partner is going to suffer the consequences and he might do the same directly after. He’s in enemy territory, even if he didn’t care about her - which he does - he’d be screwed completely alone here.

One thing Sakura has said multiple times is that she doesn’t get why they’re training specifically to beat her when her abilities are otherworldly, and while she has a point he doesn’t regret doing it.

What she doesn’t seem to get no matter how many times he grunts at her is that her skill-set and abilities are so varied that they create a wide amount of training options, and they do it consecutively. Her Genin Strength means she’s too strong for him to clash with at this point, she is stronger than him and if he doesn’t give a significant amount of force into his attack she’ll counter him outright before her stats are even considered. This means he’s had to learn to attack without ever being grounded or entering a contest of strength with his opponent. Genin Constitution means much the same. He not only has to worry about how strong his attack is, he has to worry about landing a hit well enough to actually hurt her, and that’s on top of her ability to outright counter any low effort attacks without even realizing she’s doing it.

She’s pushed him out of trying gambits, she’s forced him to adjust to facing someone stronger, faster, more reflexive and also more bloodthirsty than him. To spar with her he needs to push himself to his limit for long periods which trains his focus, and that’s before her various Jutsu come into play. Earth counters his fire, water counters his fire, her fire burns hotter than he can counter with chakra manipulation when she’s being fully boosted by her sword - luckily that doesn’t come up in spars very often - and that five element sword she can spawn in the air and shoot off like a drill can destroy any cover so he’s used to neglecting cover in favor of maneuverability and flexibility. Sure she doesn’t actually use the five element sword on him but he’s seen it, and he knows an enemy might have something similar.

She uses tricks, she uses gambits without having to fear a bad outcome, she jumps through fire to get one good hit off and she’ll slash through ninja wire and wrap her sword in it just so she can pull him off a tree. He’s used to dealing with someone stronger than him, he’s used to being hard countered and he’s used to pushing his senses past his limits even without the Sharingan. So when he flicks his red eyes on to slow his sense of reality and feels a movement beneath his feet he doesn’t hesitate, he doesn’t question it, he channels chakra to his toes and latches onto the construct spawning beneath him the moment it starts to rise.

It’s a good thing he does, because the thing he latches onto is the tip of a spear of stone trying to rip through him at the speed of a trained stab. He’s sure its summoner is furious that he managed to attach himself to the top in such a split second that it couldn’t pierce him, because another comes for his face before he can even blink. He stops connecting himself to the first one to curl his body around its lethal strike. With the next second he grabs hold of it with one hand and uses it as a pole to spin around it and send himself flying off. He hears three more eruptions from where he just was before he’s even hit the ground so he counts himself lucky he reacted as quickly as he did. More accurately, he thanks Sakura for training him to react that quickly to unexpected attacks.

She doesn’t realize how intense she can be, he blames Kakashi for explaining that the difference between life and death is in the moments where you breathe. She doesn’t let off for a single heart beat so he knows he needs to launch himself forward the moment he hits the ground. He performs a little roll to set his balance back and then he’s darting across the sand like he’s got wings and doesn’t need to touch the ground. Every second memorized, every moment he’s attacked by an invisible enemy from below so he’s not allowing a single stimulus to be discarded or tuned out. He doesn’t ignore the wind on his face from Temari’s blasts, nor the grains of sand scratching his skin thrown about, or even the way his cloak billows. The chakra beneath his feet sets the stage but it’s all just one big melody for him to listen to in the heat of battle.

There’s no cover here, but that’s fine, he doesn’t need it. His instincts are honed and he knows that the angle of those spears means that the foe should be from the north, which means he knows from Sakura that they’re actually south in that small wind storm obstructing visibility. The first few seconds of sand blowing around over there was probably from Temari, the rest is the enemy using her as a cover. If he can get rid of the issue from below he can help her without even getting involved in her fight, which means even though his blood still boils from the potion and his leg shoots spiking sensations through his body revealing it’s not fully healed yet, he still sends as much chakra as he can to his feet to launch himself forward as if he screwed up treewalking. The sword in his hands glows with desire and he palms it with his second hand as he closes his eyes and enters the coming storm.

An Uchiha would never do that normally, their life blood is in their eyes and being unable to see for even a second could mean death. That’s one of the three reasons Kakashi forbade him from using his eyes against Sakura, he wanted to train him to use all his senses and not rely on any one crutch. He’d never defeat Itachi if he allowed a weakness, it was nice to have a teacher actually care about his goals.

The other two reasons are about the consequences of mimicking something physically impossible, and that’s probably fair, but he’s ignored Kakashi exactly once and he’s grateful because it’s about to come up. The sand he flies through hurts even with his cloak, the lack of visibility is a problem, but funnily enough he likely has more training working without his best sense than the person who actually made this diversion. He feels a flare of something moving through the ground from his left, so he slashes out with his sword and just as he expects he hears a scream before he even finishes feeling his blade tug against something resistant. Sparring with Sakura has trained him to understand that when you think you’ve won is the most dangerous time, and that’s the point. In one scenario he actually got them and they’re out of the fight for the moment, the other scenario is that he falls for a trap and dies himself by continuing to attack on the confirmed target. He chooses not to pursue a haunted fifty fifty.

Instead, he channels as much flame to the Hunger Ripoff as physically possible and the sand storm around him dissipates from a stronger force of nature making its bloody desire known. He doesn’t have time to take in the new visibility, he spins like a hero and allows the one skill he actually has copied from Sakura to make itself known upon this world. “Fatal Slash!”

In a pure three sixty degree attack that would make a Hyuuga blush, he extends his will to kill to all that has life in his very own disc of influence. He watches wires sever all around him, dismantling traps he didn’t even know were set. The slash continues outward in a display of boiling blood going on the offensive, and he watches it cut through and dispel several clones into shattered stone. They were likely meant as a distraction, and they’re cleared with renewed indiscriminate violent impulse.

His Sharingan and spinning tomoe take in his surroundings and focus in on the one enemy left. Bleeding from where their arm was a moment ago, he watches someone who would have been stronger than him just a few months ago scream in agony. A sadistic part of him wants to pick up their arm and brutalize them with it, but he recognizes that as Hunger. This lesser version still comes with sadistic glee, and he finds it easy to ignore because he’s felt that every day of his life since Itachi showed him true pain.

He drops his sword into the sand to silence its nonsense and a second later a scorching inferno washes away what was. No hesitation, no pulling punches, no pause to catch his breath. None of that would be acceptable against Sakura, so it’s not acceptable here. He’s better with Jutsu than the sword, so that’s what he uses during their moment of weakness, it’s that simple.

Watching his target roll around and burn to death salves something inside him anyway, but at least he knows it’s his own tortured whims and not the sword’s.

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“It looks like your friend’s been dealt with.” Temari hisses out through clenched teeth. This bastard targeted her hands immediately and she was too surprised to get away unscathed. Things were looking very dire until a few seconds ago. With the earth specialist’s Jutsu out of the equation she only has to care about another wind user actively trying to overpower her. He’s not doing a very good job, but that’s what teamwork is about, it was impossible before and now it’s easy simply because Sasuke got involved. “You should surrender. I doubt they’ll destroy your soul the moment you die and as the Kazekage’s daughter I’m in a position to negotiate your revival.”

“We both know you’re bluffing and that’s only a possibility at best.” The man incidentally helping to create the tornado that surrounds them growls at her, and she can’t fault him for his doubt. Originally it was to try and confuse the earth user, now he’s keeping it up to try and keep Sasuke out. “I’m sorry princess but we’ve always hated you and I’m not sacrificing myself for someone I hate.”

“I won’t fault you for that, I’d hate me too.” She’s the minder of Gaara, after-all, it only makes sense. Sadly for him, it does remove any semblance of sympathy she had stopping her here. The wind along her fan flares to life as she kicks it up a notch and her superior power flares to life with a gale that cuts and spreads their footing outward. They’ve spent the last several days grinding almost non-stop. Most people would have had to cope with their death for a bit, but she’s understood she’s a few seconds from death for most of her life. It took her twenty minutes to grasp what needed to be done enough that she started killing the enemy. Where this man likely spent the first day trying to get the barest hint of what was going on, she hit the ground running and nodded to the sky.

With her full strength on display, there’s simply no contest. She slashes her fan down in his direction and unleashes the strongest ability she could buy from the shop. She doesn’t even need to say the call phrase these abilities all have. She charges up her power, wills it forth, and erases him from existence. She has just enough time to blink before she finds he’s already disappeared by the time she’s done, just dust in her wind’s cleansing path.

This shouldn’t be this easy.

Her people were not prepared, and that’s a personal failing. She’ll do better once they’re running her village. The invasion would have failed even if Gaara was following along if this was her support.

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[All Hero Shards improved by 15%]

The power hits Karin differently. She’s spent most of her life so powerless that even a one percent difference is massive and she’s getting huge chunks. Forget the shop, she can feel strength in her fingers and durability on her skin. She’s smarter, she’s faster, she’s even pretty sure she’s more cool, confident, and understanding of the other people here.

Her life has temporarily been turned into a game where she’s winning, and she doesn’t want to lose that. Six out of ten of the enemies are dead, and it’s almost over, but for now she’s a monolith and she’s only sad she hasn’t gotten a chance to use her strength against the enemy. Ino’s right, she should have been out there to help when the blonde got attacked. It’s a waste that she wasn’t able to test out her abilities on them and she deeply regrets not being with her when it happened.

[6 out of 8 eliminations required have been achieved. Free For All mode has been enabled.

Revival will be Commenced in [2] Deaths.]

“Oh.” Karin can’t help but blink at the pop up showing up in front of her.

She thought it was supposed to be a full eradication of the enemy team, but it’s not. What are the odds the two enemy team members kill each now that they’re not on a team?

What are the odds her team turns on her? She’s probably the weakest among them, there’d be zero risk to them if they got rid of her. Can she trust them even a little bit? She looks towards the window, she inches towards it, but something deep inside stops her. When she died last time she was hiding in a cave after running for her life, does she want to do that again when they’ve been so nice to her?

She turns around and pushes open the door to walk into the rest of the cabin proper. “So we’re ignoring that, right?”

“Yep.” Shikamaru hasn’t even moved from where he’s lazily resting back on the couch with his hands behind his head.

“Would you prefer we kill each-other? I’d rather not…” Chouji, munches on something he likely got from the fridge. It looks like fried fish turned into crisps of some sort?

“Yeah, I’ll kill anyone that tries to hurt anyone else.” Ino’s proclamation is very confident in a way that Karin can’t help but envy, especially when the blonde shoots her a grin while pointing towards herself with her thumb. “We can take out two enemies together pretty easily.”

“Forget that, no one should go out alone anymore. Period.” Kankuro says.

“Not even to go to the bathroom?” Hinata squeaks a little from where she’s standing in their kitchen making probably the best smelling meal Karin has ever had the grace of sniffing.

“We wait until Sasuke and Temari get back, or clear the enemy.” Shikamaru confirms. “The enemy now knows that to survive all they have to do is kill two of-”

[8 out of 8 eliminations have been achieved. Revival commencing in five minutes]

“...”

“...”

“...”

The silence around the room is louder than any order Shikamaru was about to bark. All their grinding, all their getting more comfortable with themselves, all this self growth… And the enemy killed each-other to avoid the final losing fight. “I guess that way the strongest of them survive, while waiting means whichever two we get first die randomly.” Ino explains one of their possible thought processes with a bit of a crack in her tone.

“I’ll be back to normal in five minutes.” Karin says with a depression that hits her harder than that bear almost did back in the forest. Sure the death game is over, but the life she’ll be returning to is no life at all.

“Sakura’s adopt-napping you, remember?” Ino claps her shoulder with a soothing palm that rubs in tender circles. “She’ll make you strong again, it’s just a matter of working for it.”

“I guess so…” She has a hard time staying on her feet. She didn’t even fight an enemy, but it feels like she’s been through an eternal gauntlet. Karin’s not sure how she’ll go back to normal life, even if that normal life is in a new home inside of a crazy girl’s house. “It’s finally over, and I’m not sure I’m happy, but we’re all alive.”

“The secret is that’s all that matters.” Ino graces her with an even brighter smile. “Holy crap, no one died!”

“Assuming Sasuke and Temari weren’t the two that just died.” Shikamaru says grimly.

“Shut up, no they’re not.” Ino rolls her eyes and shakes her head at him, “we didn’t get their loot.”

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“We did it!” Sakura’s not a hugger, but that hasn’t stopped her from basically pinning Samael to the wall with the sheer force of her grip around the older woman. “We did it, we did it, we did it!”

“That we did.” The Dark Knight reaches around her with hesitant hands and squeezes her like one might a child. “But it was mostly you.”

“You picked them! I couldn’t have done it without you, I’m never underestimating my allies ever again!” Sakura’s overly enthusiastic joy for life overflows, while Samael takes a look over at Rosalia. She’s biting her thumb while watching her screen. For every victory there’s a failure, and Samael gets the impression Rosalia’s been seeing a lot of that.

So she chooses not to point out that they have a deal and that’s why she picked them, and instead tilts her head a little curiously and speaks. “How is your team doing, Rosalia?”

“Poorly.” The noble grumbles back. “I’ve lost two people in the last hour, though they have too. I think this is going to roll down the middle. The odd part is my team isn’t winning on their own merit, they’re actually kind of stupid and I think I might have more combat experience than them.”

“You have combat experience?” Sakura looks back, only to find herself ignored.

“They’re winning by a massive equipment advantage, It almost seems like this Akari chick is intentionally giving them bad gear. The stuff Sakura wrote for me outstrips their capabilities in every way.” Rosalia continues.

“She might actually be sabotaging them, don’t pretend to understand Akari, ever, I’ll talk to her. For now, Sakura, let’s take a look at your actual team and see how they’re doing.”